Angioplasty catheters, stents and stent delivery systems are generally known in the art. Both over-the-wire and rapid-exchange type catheters are known. An inflation balloon may be delivered to a deployment site, such as a lesion or occlusion, in a reduced or unexpanded configuration. Once properly positioned within a lesion, the balloon may be expanded, thereby dilating the lesion. In some cases, a stent may be delivered to the site of a lesion where it may be used, sometimes in conjunction with an inflation balloon, to dilate the lesion and/or to support a vessel at the site of a dilated lesion.
When vessels are significantly occluded, it may be difficult to position an inflation balloon or unexpanded stent across the lesion. It may even be difficult to cross the lesion with a guidewire. The options generally available for treating a significantly or completely occluded vessel include using a rotational atherectomy device to debulk hard and/or calcified lesion material, or invasive bypass surgery.
There remains a need for a device capable of predilating a lesion. A predilation may allow for an inflation balloon and/or stent delivery system to traverse the lesion, thereby providing an alternative to rotational atherectomy devices or invasive bypass surgery.
Desirably, a predilation device may be capable of rapid-exchange type operation.
Further, there remains a need for a device capable of allowing an over-the-wire type catheter to be used in a rapid-exchange type method.
All US patents and applications and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Without limiting the scope of the invention a brief summary of some of the claimed embodiments of the invention is set forth below. Additional details of the summarized embodiments of the invention and/or additional embodiments of the invention may be found in the Detailed Description of the Invention below.
A brief abstract of the technical disclosure in the specification is provided as well only for the purposes of complying with 37 C.F.R. 1.72. The abstract is not intended to be used for interpreting the scope of the claims.